Thank you Sharon. I wasn't arguing with you, just arguing with myself. OMG, my friends say "Arlene, you can analyze anything." A plus and a curse. Thank you for being so nice!

Seedfork - THAT is exactly how the foliage on some of mine look! Like long blades of grass all clumped together and some of it flops over.

Sharon - That's cool !

Well you are in zone 7a and Seedfork is in zone 8b. It would appear that the heat factor for dormants would be between those zones. So the "grassing" issue is perhaps the results of dormants being grown in zone 8 and higher. Interesting. I saw this growing in my yard and just assumed that the foliage was for genetic reason different. Apparently that is not true!!!

Arlene - What you wrote makes sense.

With me growing seedlings, there is no telling what genetics will show up in any of those plants. Especially the ones with unknown parentage. I am just surprised that my grassing daylilies have even survived. This is the two year mark for them. Now to see if they come back next year.

You are very easy to be nice to, Arlene.
I should have clarified that I'm talking about what is true for me in my little bit of zone 7a, the coolest, I guess, of the warm climes. In fact, I'll go back and edit that little point right into my original post. Juli and Char are supposed to correct me when I get out of line but they are busy today maybe and haven't had the opportunity. On the other hand, neither of them knows about my zone. ha!

Becky, give your seedlings more time to grow and don't forget about what I found concerning culture tissue, just in case that might make a 'parental' difference in the habits of some.

Edit because I've forgotten how to spell.

Sharon - Thanks!

Does anyone know approximately (what year) when daylilies started to be sold that came from culture tissue? I hadn't heard of that until earlier this year. I live in the dark ages ....

Sorry Becky, had to make a short pharmacy run.

Tissue culture has been around since maybe the beginning of the 1900s then in the 60s the study was expanded beyond governmental labs where it had been tested on just about any living organism, mostly for health purposes, I think. But it wasn't until the 90s that it crept into the world of commercial plant possibilities. When it went beyond that and on to market, I don't know, but I do know it's quite recent.

I only vaguely remember learning about it when working on my uncle's daylily farm in central KY. He was the scientific one, but I'm pretty good at remembering history, I just don't know details. And at about that same time -- the late 90s -- the news about the possibility of propagation by tissue reached him through some sort of publication and that's when I learned about it. If he had lived he might have learned more. I really hadn't thought much about it over the years, and that's all I remember. I hope somebody who knows can answer you. The practice resulted in more plants at a much faster rate which was great for commerce.

Today was my wife's day to host cards, so off I went to the library. I found some interesting info to me, not being very familiar with dormants.There is such a thing as a "hard dormant' and it requires at least 29 days of dormancy to remain vigorous and tend to perform less well in warm climates. They will develop a grasslike foliage and refuse to bloom, often dying out completely after a few years. The book said it could take several years to assess whether or not a hard dormant would perform well in a hot climate.

Seed, you might have just found a big broad answer that covers a lot of territory. If you have enough patience to treat your grassy CrimsonPirate to a few years of your specific environment, it might give us all some answers.

Sharon - Thank you for all that info. I knew about culture tissue in general, but not about producing daylilies that way. That was new to me. And apparently, those that are produced that way have issues? Less hardy or not as healthy?

So basically, the plant species of daylilies probably didn't get created from culture tissue until the late 1990's .... or has it been more recent?

Seedfork - Well, it sure sounds like what mine do IF they don't survive. Two years is all that hard dormants survive in zone 9b for me. I went back through some of my photos from this year to see if I could actually see the foliage in the pictures. Unfortunately not. They may "not" be hard dormants that bloomed this year. The ones - that I suspected - had some nice blooms and look pretty good now (foliage). But what do I know?! I have lost daylilies though that did indeed have the grassing affect on the foliage. Second year they struggled and didn't come back after that.

beckygardener said:Pat - That's interesting. I wonder if it is a true dormant? None of my dormants last more than 2 years here. I use them for crossing if I really like the blooms. And I cross them with evergreens in hopes that it changes the child to become either sev or ev.

How many fans did Crimson Pirate have?

Crimson Pirate is still in a pot, but has made several fans since coming here this Spring. Of hand, I think there are about 5 or 6 fans out there and still going (will get them in the ground soon).
I also have Frans Hals that has been here for 8 years. The only one dormant Iost was during the drought when I missed watering it.

But my dormants and most of my daylilies get afternoon shade and maybe that has something to do with it.
I don't prefer dormants. They got here before I knew there were different types.

However, I did order some teeth dormants (cheap) this year to try for pollination, if they ever bloom.

I truly love my daylilies. I've been growing them since 1974 (I found pics from Denver (that's where I grew up) with a bright yellow daylily in them. I left there in 1984.) Anyway, moved to Atlanta in 1990. Planted mostly dormants because I loved their colors. They flourished after I added a lot of stuff to the clay. To this day, I blame that clay for my carpel tunnel problems. I'm sure its true. I traveled on business 3 out of 4 weeks. When I was home, I gardened like an idiot. A neighbor tried to help, but I was determined. We stayed there 9 years and the daylilies looked amazing. Lovely! When we sold I gave the new ladies my card file for the garden plants. Lots and lots of them.

Since I can't trust hybridizers descriptions that don't detail the plants heritage, what chance do I have of growing evergreen daylilies? Sometime it works, and other times it doesn't. I have a friend who really profits from this because she is further north. Watching dormants decline isn't my idea of fun. Unfortunately it happens, and I like the plant, but it really doesn't thrive. I've talked myself into this and it isn't healthy!!!!! Not for someone who loves daylilies. I actually envy those of you who live further north who can grow stuff that doesn't grow here. I just can't move off the beach. I love it here! I can't move to grow a greater selection of daylilies, although my husband thinks that I might. No. After 40 yr of marriage, that isn't going to happen.

I have tried very hard to find an actual study of the percentage of problems with Tissue Culture daylilies, but I have been unsuccessful. I do see a lot of reports of problems but it seems anyone who has bought a daylily in the past few years that did not look right blames it on Tissue Culture problems. Finding any data not over several years old has been impossible, so I continue to wonder if the kinks have been worked out, and now even daylilies can successfully be tissue culture produced reliably.I did see that now hundreds of thousands of daylilies are produced by tissue culture every year, just assuming that is correct, they must be selling them and not having tons of problems. But, I have no way of knowing with out some scientific testing and reporting being done, I would think with hundreds of thousands being sold, surly some major university would have received a grant and published the results by now. Maybe someone out there has this information? Any USDA studies, I would think this would be of interest to them.